7B Image Studies: Visual Experience and the Shape of Meaning in Images
Laurel Beckman
Department of Art
Lecture #5
COLOR THEORY- HOW WE SEE COLOR
Seeing Color, Wavelengths
Subtractive and Additive Color Systems- Pigment and Light, Paint and Emulsion
RYB, CMYK, RGB
Color Theory Attributes:
Primaries, Secondaries, Tertiaries
Complementary Color
Hue, Value (tints and shades), Saturation/Intensity
Simultaneous Contrast, Contrast
Analogous Color, Temperature/Warm/Cool, Subjective Color, Monochrome, Gold
Intro to Color in Print, Photography, Digital (more next week)
video:
Joshua Light Show & Ben Goldwasser & Andrew VanWyngarden, 2012
Sony Bravia ad, 2006
Zhang Yimou , director, Hero, 2002, extended trailer
Laylah Ali in her studio, from Art 21
Blair Neal, Color a Sound, Max/MSP/Jitter, overhead projector, 2010
_____________________________________________________________________________
_
1.
Electromagnetic Spectrum
2.
Human Eye, the Retina and Color Vision, web images
3.
Refraction & reflection
4.
Refracted light
5.
Reflected light
6.
Dog and human color vision
7.
Lisa Jevbratt, Zoomorph, mobile app
8.
Human color blind test image
9.
Afterimage
10.
George Seurat, La Parade, 1887/8, oil 100x150 cm, and detail
11.
Eduardo Kac, Transgenic Albino Rabbit (GPF) “Alba”, 2000, injected at an embryonic
stage with a florescent protein, Alba emits a green glow when placed under an
ultraviolet lamp, other florescent animals
12.
The 3 Visual Properties of Color- Hue, Saturation, Value
13.
Hue
14.
Saturation
15.
Saturation Sequence
16.
Michelangelo, detail of the Sistine Chapel, 1508, fresco, showing restored colored
17.
Chris Ware, 1977 cover, Print’s Regional Design Annual
18.
Connie Samaras, A Left Over Orange, Sahara Hotel, LV, photograph
19.
Value
20.
Value sequence and samples
21.
Tint, tone, shade, examples
22.
Justin Stephens, Avoiding Eye Contact, 2013, ink, gesso, felt pads, 16x12”
23.
Additive & Subtractive Color Models
24.
Color Models have Primary Colors, Primary colors can not be mixed or formed from
other colors
25.
Additive & Subtractive primaries
26.
Additive Color- Light – primaries red, green, blue (RGB)
27.
Additive color through projected light
28.
RGB devices, cameras, scanner, monitor, phone, digital camera sensor
29.
LED flat screen tv
30.
Projection environments
31.
2 projections (including Paul Chan)
32.
Color and Light
33.
Lighting examples (4)
34.
Nanoclusters backlit with polarized light, from On the Surface of Things: Images of the
Extraordinary in Science, Felice Frankel and George Whitesides, 1997 book, polarization
35.
Hubble space telescope image showing false color
36.
James Turrell, 1980-86, NY PS1 Installation, Meeting (view with daylight & twilight)
37.
Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral series (30 in all), 1892-4
38.
Color in the Digital Environment (more next week)
39.
Digital color spectrum & web safe colors
40.
Color in Photography (more next week)
41.
Film camera, film, darkroom film enlarger
42.
Polaroid & emulsion transfer photographs
43.
Color in printing (more next week)
44.
Subtractive Color – pigment based
45.
Subtractive color model primaries (print and paint)
46.
Color in Printing
47.
Print primaries (CMYK)
48.
Print CMYK in 4-color halftones
49.
Subtractive Color – Pigment
50.
Subtractive Color – Pigment Paint Primaries
51.
Red, Yellow, Blue, the 3 paint pigment primaries (Subtractive color model)
52.
12 Point color wheel
53.
Fabian Oefner, Liquid Jewel, photograph made using centrifugal force
54.
Color pigment history examples
55.
Piet Mondrian, Composition, 1921, painting
56.
Roy Lichtenstein, In the Car, 1963, oil on canvas
57.
Justin Stadel, public art project, Echo park/LA, 2006
58.
McDonalds
59.
Subtractive Color – Pigment Paint Secondaries
60.
Color Wheel
61.
Secondary colors- Orange, Green, Purple
62.
Anonymous, Quilt, secondary colors go well together
63.
Paul Cezanne, Montagnes, l’Estaque, 1878-80, oil 53x72cm
64.
Stenberg Bros., The Man From the Forest, 1928, offset film poster 42x28”
65.
Kevin Appel, Untitled Interior #5, 1995, oil 64x58”
66.
Tertiaries
67.
Color Wheel with more colors
68.
Tertiary, everything else
69.
Complementary Colors
70.
Color wheel
71.
Complementary Colors, blue/orange, purple/yellow, red/green
72.
Complementary Colors, colors between
73.
Mark Rothko, oil on canvas, c. 1950
74.
Nikoali Kulbin, Sea View, 1905, oil 39”x25”
75.
Masami Teraoka, Aids Series: Geisha and Fox, 1988, watercolor, 15x25
76.
Alex Grey, “Painting”, c.1998, oil on linen 40x30”
77.
Vincent Van Gogh, The Night Cafe, 1888, 39x92cm
78.
Red/green squares, contrasts change appearance, simultaneous contrast
79.
Color temperature
80.
Color temperature, warm & cool, examples
81.
Monochrome
82.
Yan Pei-Ming, Mao au Balcon de Tienanmen, 2000, oil on canvas, 98.5”x98.5”
83.
Gary Hume, Belerus, 2000, enamel on aluminum, 100”x135”
84.
Ziga Kariz, The Grey City 2 (detail), 1997, oil on canvas, 34.25”x86.75”
85.
Yves Klein, R11, 1960, oil and sponges on canvas
86.
Mark Tansey, unknown title painting
87.
Anna Atkins, from Ocean Flowers, 1843, cyanotype from seaweed
88.
Unknown, sepia photograph
89.
Analogous Color
90.
Analogous color wheels and examples
91.
Lisa Yuskavage, Little Farm, 2012, oil on linen
92.
Analogous color in interior design, fabric, products
93.
Gold
94.
Buoninsegna, 1315, egg tempera on poplar, the isolated figures deny natural space, with the use
of gold helping allusion to a spiritual space
95.
Budda cave, unknown place, date
96.
Bernard Faucon, Le Petite Boudoha, 1998, color photograph
97.
Andy Warhol, Lady on a Rooster, 1957, gold foil, water color, ink 25x19”
98.
Andy Warhol, Oxidation Painting, 1978, mixed media (urine) on copper paint on canvas 72x204”
99.
Jim Hodges, and still this, 2008, real gold leaf with Beva on gessoed linen, 10 parts,
200”x185’x89” ea
100.
Gold sucking trees in Australia
101.
Florescent and Day Glo- Fluorescence
102.
Color tests, the same yellow, red, blue, yellow, blue
103.
Color tests, legibility
-------------------------------------
Lecture 5 notes
HOW WE SEE COLOR:
The most technically accurate definition of color is: "Color is the visual effect that is caused by
the spectral composition of the light emitted, transmitted, or reflected by objects."
Color results from light rays, which are a kind of electromagnetic energy. Our eyes can see the
light of wave lengths between 400-700 millimicrons. The human eye + the brain sees the color,
it’s a collaboration. Light waves themselves are not colored.
Light enters the eye and hits the retina, where it is absorbed by the rod and cone cells, which in
turn transmit signals via the optic nerve directly to the “visual center” at the back of the brain.
White light (the sun) passing throught the prism is dispersed into the colors of the visible
spectrum> refraction. Other ways of to generate colors include interference, diffraction,
polarization, and florescence. Each spectral hue is the complement of the mixture of all the other
spectral hues.
When we look at an object/surface and see, say, red- what is happening is that the object
absorbs all the spectral colors besides red and reflects only the red.
There is no such thing as perfect color or pure color. Color perception, theories and use of color
are all entirely subjective.
When nature/science’s pigments are combined with spectral light millions of shades are
produced. Pigments (paint, ink, etc.) are always duller than light.
The experience of color is the result of the eye+brain including culture, light and the eye+”brain”
makes the image: examples of engineering a vision
The two main color
models are- Additive and Subtractive Color
Additive Color
Color as the direct product of light; film photography (hybrid), digital photography
Subtractive Color
color is perceived as a result of pigment , this is the family for paint pigments and there
is also a sub-set of printing ink pigment within the Subtractive Color Model
Primary Colors: can not be created by mixture, and cannot be broken down into
component parts
Subtractive color primaries:
for Print- Cyan, magenta, Yellow, Black (CMYK)
for Paint- Red, Yellow, Blue (RYB)
Additive color primaries:
Red, Green, Blue (RGB)
Secondary Colors: are the result of mixing 2 primaries together
Complementary Color:
Directly opposite on the color wheel, and are of extreme contrast. Red absorbs mostly green,
etc. Causes vibration.
Split Complement: is a color and the two colors on either side of its complement; produces less contrast
than full complements
Simultaneous Contrast:
When 2 colors come into direct contact, the contrast intensifies the difference between them.
The 3 Visual Properties of Color: HUE, SATURATION, VALUE
Hue:
Common name of a color, determined by its specific wavelength
Saturation also called Intensity or Chroma:
The depth or “colorfullness” of a color, its freedom from gray.
Strenght or purity of a color. The quality of “light” in a color-brightness and dullness.
Adding a neutral gray changes intensity but not value.
Value:
Relative degree of light and dark properties of a color, achieved through adding white=tint
or black=shade.
For example, when you add white to a color it becomes lighter in value but lower in intensity.
The most efficient way to change intensity is by mixing its complement.
Monochrome: Containing: just one hue
Color temperature: warm/cool colors
Analogous Color:
Closely related Hues -by positon on the spectrum (& color wheel)
Gold -used to describe spiritual space, devotional, fetishistic use of gold
A SHORT HISTORY OF COLOR THEORIES
1666- Issac Newton discovers that white light going through a prism refracts into the visible
spectrum.
1770-Moses Harris observes 3 “primitive” or primary colors, red, yellow and blue. This theory was
finally accepted 100 years later.
1810- Johann W. Goethe, who opposed Newtons “optiks”, and wrote in “The Doctrine of Colors”
that there were only 6 spectral colors, and that color was primarily composed of light and dark.
He also observed that yellow sunlight produced violet (its complement) shadows.
1839- M.E. Chevreul, a French chemist, develops his theory of Simultaneous Contrast, which hold
s that contrast intensifies the difference. Maximum color contrast achieved by placing certain
colors side by sdie. If 2 colors are placed next to each other the difference between them appears
at its greatest. But the effect is most striking with complementary colors (the color of the
spectrum it bsorbs, i.e., red absorbs mostly green)
1921-1960- Johannes Itten is responsible for our understanding of the 3 “visual dimensions or
properties of color”> HUE, VALUE (Tone), AND SATURATION/INTENSITY